We want you to put aside your differences. And to spend some time getting closer to your family and friends. If you take a step back and look, you may surprise yourself with how much you have in common with people. The person next to you on the train could become your best friend. After all, aren't we all just looking for love? Don't forget to laugh a little. And sing a little. Happy Holidays y'all!

Our mission is to provide a non-discriminatory environment within the hockey community. We encourage all people with a passion for ice hockey -- novice or pro, male or female, straight or gay -- to contact us and learn to skate, play on our team, volunteer for social events, come to the games, and join our organization.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK -- New York's Cardinal Timothy Dolan says the Roman Catholic Church has been "outmarketed" on the issue of gay marriage and has been "caricatured as being anti-gay."

Dolan discussed the church's positions opposing same-sex marriage and abortion in an interview with "Meet the Press" moderator David Gregory that will air Sunday on NBC.

Gregory noted that Illinois just became the latest U.S. state to legalize gay marriage and asked, "Regardless of the church teachings, do you think this is evolving in such a way that it's ultimately going to be legal everywhere?"

Or, he asked, will there be "a backlash" against gay marriage?

"I think I'd be a Pollyanna to say that there doesn't seem to be kind of a stampede to do this," Dolan said. "I regret that."

Asked why the church is losing the argument on gay marriage, Dolan responded, "Well, I think maybe we've been outmarketed sometimes. We've been caricatured as being anti-gay."

BY LISA LEFF

ASSOCIATED PRESS

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The weekly meetings of Mouthing Off!, a group for students at Mills College in Oakland, Calif., who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, always start the same way. Members take turns going around the room saying their names and the personal pronouns they want others to use when referring to them — she, he or something else.

It's an exercise that might seem superfluous given that Mills, a small and leafy liberal arts school historically referred to as the Vassar of the West, only admits women as undergraduates. Yet increasingly, the "shes" and "hers" that dominate the introductions are keeping third-person company with "they," "ze" and other neutral alternatives meant to convey a more generous notion of gender.

"Because I go to an all-women's college, a lot of people are like, 'If you don't identify as a woman, how did you get in?'" said sophomore Skylar Crownover, 19, who is president of Mouthing Off! and prefers to be mentioned as a singular they, but also answers to he. "I just tell them the application asks you to mark your sex and I did. It didn't ask me for my gender."

ASSOCIATED PRESS

It said Wednesday that three men carrying handguns and machetes raided the office of the Haitian rights organization Kouraj last week. Amnesty says the intruders said the center shouldn't be allowed to operate and aimed anti-gay remarks at the two activists who were tied and beaten.

The attackers also stole equipment, which included two laptops and files that contained sensitive information about the group's members.

Haiti's small gay and lesbian community has long remained largely underground because of a strong social stigma that sparks fears of physical violence and loss of employment.

Those negative sentiments spilled into the streets this summer when thousands joined in an anti-gay demonstration.

BY SUDHIN THANAWALA

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court has ordered immigration officials to review their decision not to grant asylum to a gay man who said he was attacked for his sexual orientation in 2002 and 2003 in his native Russia and feared he would be persecuted if forced to return there.

The U.S. Department of Justice's Board of Immigration Appeals was wrong when it concluded that the man had failed to show that government officials in Russia were either unwilling or unable to control his attackers, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday.

The man was only identified as "John Doe" in the opinion.

"The government failed to present any evidence to rebut Doe's undisputed testimony that he suffered serious assaults at the hands of individuals on account of his homosexuality or to show that the Russian government was able and willing to control non-governmental actors who attack homosexuals," the court said.

The Nov. 22 editorial, New day on the Beach, said that the most talked-about result of the elections is the absence of Hispanics in City Hall. The Herald is again listening to the echo chamber of the Editorial Board, those who lost the election and their supporters.

The election was about reform and cleaning up the corruption and mismanagement of recent years — that’s what was on the minds of Beach residents.

Over half the city is Hispanic, that means many, if not a majority, of Hispanic voters voted to elect the current Commission. In Miami Beach, Hispanics, Anglos, blacks, Christians, Jews, straight people, lesbians and gays looked past ethnic, religious, racial and gender identity and voted for whom they deemed the most qualified. The Herald should laud this thoughtful post- ethnic approach to government, instead of fanning the flames of ethnic division.

BY SOPHIA TAREEN

ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHICAGO -- In a short ceremony inside their Chicago apartment, two beaming brides made Illinois history Wednesday as they became the first gay couple to wed under the state's new law legalizing same-sex marriage.

The law approved last week doesn't go into effect until June, but one of the women — Vernita Gray — is terminally ill with cancer, so she and her partner of five years, Patricia Ewert, were granted an expedited marriage license by a federal judge's order.

The two made it official Wednesday in front of more than 20 friends at their high-rise home on the city's North Side. A Cook County judge officiated, and a close friend who deemed himself the "flower girl" tossed red rose petals and the couple kissed several times.

They were pronounced wife and wife.

"So happy, so incredibly happy," Ewert told The Associated Press after the wedding. "We feel so blessed to have this honor bestowed upon us. I love my partner, my wife now, more every single day."

BY JAYNA OMAYE

MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

WASHINGTON -- Many gay, lesbian and transgender immigrants held in U.S. detention centers, who may be vulnerable to abuse by guards and other detainees, are placed in solitary confinement to protect them, but the isolation can cause psychological problems, according to a new report by the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

“Solitary confinement is considered a form of torture,” said Sharita Gruberg, a policy analyst at the center, which released the report Monday addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender immigrant abuses in U.S. immigrant detention facilities. “When (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) does this to prevent people from being sexually assaulted, it puts them at risk of other forms of trauma.”

Some LGBT immigrants also face physical, sexual and verbal abuse from detention facility guards while in solitary, which defeats the purpose of isolating vulnerable populations, said Gruberg, who wrote the report.

The report found about 200 reports of sexual, mental and physical abuse involving LGBT detainees by guards and other immigrants at all federal facilities from 2008 to 2013.